Global warming activists: Get those “deniers” out of meteorology

posted at 3:05 pm on January 30, 2012 by Tina Korbe

Just as I wrapped up my last post, which included a hearty bit of praise for information dissemination, I came across this article from The Daily Caller’s Caroline May. It’s a great reminder that not everyone considers the publication and distribution of wide-ranging opinions a positive. To them, it’s better to just censor dissenters:

Concerned that too many “deniers” are in the meteorology business, global warming activists this month launched a campaign to recruit local weathermen to hop aboard the alarmism bandwagon and expose those who are not fully convinced that the world is facing man-made doom.

The Forecast the Facts campaign — led by 350.org, the League of Conservation Voters and the Citizen Engagement Lab — is pushing for more of a focus on global warming in weather forecasts, and is highlighting the many meteorologists who do not share their beliefs.

“Our goal is nothing short of changing how the entire profession of meteorology tackles the issue of climate change,” the group explains on their website. “We’ll empower everyday people to make sure meteorologists understand that their viewers are counting on them to get this story right, and that those who continue to shirk their professional responsibility will be held accountable.” …

So far, the campaign has identified 55 “deniers” in the meteorologist community and are looking for more. They define “deniers” as “anyone who expressly refutes the overwhelming scientific consensus about climate change: that it is real, largely caused by humans, and already having profound impacts on our world.”

“We track the views of meteorologists through their on-air statements, blog posts, social media activity, public appearances, interviews, and interactions with viewers,” the campaign explains.

Talk about dogmatism and intolerance.

Some activists say they are upset that meteorologists spout off about global warming when their expertise is in short-term weather patterns, not long-term climate trends. They want to correct the impression that meteorologists’ opinions about climate change somehow count for more than ordinary individuals’. I can think of far better ways to correct that impression than to force meteorologists to voice support for the idea that men have caused global warming. In fact, wouldn’t meteorologists standing on their soapboxes in favor of environmentalist ideas also reinforce the misimpression that they are experts in long-term climate science? Either way, meteorologists’ opinions count just as much as ordinary individuals’ — and to target them in any way for having the “wrong” opinion shows little respect for the right of freedom of speech.

Here’s a better idea: Forecast the Facts could purchase ad time on local TV stations and run ads that feature this quote from a sympathetic meteorologist: “You wouldn’t ask your dentist about your gallbladder and you shouldn’t ask your local TV weatherman about climate change.” The ad could end with a URL to a site that provides the supposed evidence for manmade global warming. That would show respect for the intelligence of viewers and would invite individuals to make up their own minds about the issue.

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

Thankfully, their game is unraveling quickly, and will soon be clearly demonstrated to be the massive fraud it is. Sadly, all of science will suffer as a consequence. Unwittingly, these fools have triggered the beginning of the end of Big Science. Maybe that’s not all bad.

mr.blacksheep on January 30, 2012 at 4:28 PM

I dunno. Lots of companies and governments have been beaten up over climate change so much that they’ve basically submitted to the belief that carbon emissions are bad. So they’re investing in things that aren’t very productive, just so they can avoid further anger from environmentalists. The truth doesn’t matter.

Consider the iconography of the leftist deception.
The picture of the earth surrounded by thick glass (CO2), like from an actual gardening greenhouse, was often presented. Turns out there’s no thick glass around the earth. CO2 is a trace gas, with trace effects. Just 1 in 2500 molecules in the atmosphere is CO2. And even after peer reviewed papers had shown that the claimed causal correlation between CO2 and temperatures was false, the ipcc continued to propagate this fundamental falsehood. And so did Al Gore: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK_WyvfcJyg.

“…every time someone dies as a result of floods in Bangladesh, an airline executive should be dragged out of his office and drowned.” — George Monbiot, UK Eco-Journalist
`

Some activists say they are upset that meteorologists spout off about global warming when their expertise is in short-term weather patterns, not long-term climate trends.

The “climatologists” say that they can determine what the climate will be decades in advance where the meteorologists can’t tell you what the weather will be next week because, when looked at in the long term, the earth’s climate is more predictable when those predictions are expressed in terms of general trends.

But that’s just an article of faith, a theory, one that hasn’t been proven and can’t be proven without the decades of experience to know if the predicted trends came true. That’s how real science is done: make observations, form a theory from those observations, and test your theory by making predictions based on it and then testing whether or not they’re true. And over the past couple of decades their predictions have been proven to be pretty wrong, which you would expect would lead a reasonable scientists to at least entertain doubt about the theory.

But rather than question the unproven assumptions at the root of their field of study, climatologists instead are destroying the careers of anyone who points out these facts. That’s the act of a religious cult, not a field of science.

Global Cooling: The Average Temperature of the Earth will keep dropping and we will have another Ice Age due to the burning of fossil fuels. You cannot look at local weather, only the overall climate is involved.

It didn’t. According to the Scientific Method, Global Cooling was wrong.

Global Warming: The Average Temperature of the Earth will keep rising and we will have melt the ice caps and Earth will be unlivable due to the burning of fossil fuels.You cannot look at local weather, only the overall climate is involved.

It didn’t. According to the Scientific Method, Global Warming was wrong.

Climate Change: Local weather patterns will be “more” severe. (I have yet to see a definition as to how they will measure that. And considering “deniers” say that weather changes every year they should need about 20 years of an increasingly bad weather around the world.)

They need to define their prediction first. Then they need to explain why now every time weather occurs on the Earth, it is supposedly “proof”. Especially after 40 years of saying you can’t look at local weather patterns.

This is why people refer to global “cooling/warming/climate change/whatever they call it next week” as a SCAM!

those who continue to shirk their professional responsibility will be held accountable.” …

The world is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions, real Old Testament wrath of God type stuff, fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes…The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!

You have the “scientific method” completely wrong – that’s not how it’s done any more.
The NEW approved liberal scientific method is:
1) Determine the political outcome you want.
2) Decide the “science” you will use to get it.
3) Define your conclusions to reach the desired outcome.
4) Fabricate data to support your conclusions.
5) Get the government to implement “fixes” based on your “research”.
5) Attack anyone who questions your conclusions, data or methods.
6) Get rich and retire to a beachfront mansion.

Weather forecasting #2 on Cracked’s list of the most statistically full-of-s**t professions.

MadisonConservative on January 30, 2012 at 3:15 PM

Thanks, great article.

AGW alarmists have been screaming, “The sky is falling!” for 35 years now. Go down to the sea shore and tell me if the seas are rising dramatically. We had mild warming from the 70s, and now we’ve had 15 years of mild cooling/static temps. These jerks already jumped the shark last season, now they’re just broadcasting reruns until their funding dries up.

They already distinguish themselves with their idiotic burlap bags that they bring with them to the supermarket to bag their groceries in. Think of all the money people are making from selling these bags! It’s like a socially conscious version of the pet rock.

ardenenoch on January 30, 2012 at 4:07 PM

Uh most of them are not burlap. The ones you normally buy from Walmart and most chain grocery stores are made from PLASTIC and are made in China or Pakistan.

Did anyone ever stop to consider that many meteorologists do not believe in “global warming” BECAUSE they have studied in detail the interactions of solar radiation, liquid water, water vapor, clouds, and the atmosphere and concluded from their extensive study that CO2 doesn’t matter much?

If you want to be a TV meteorologist, don’t bother studying the weather.

Why don’t we ask Al Gore about Beer’s Law, which is used to calculate energy absorbed by gases when infrared light is passed through them? No, Mr. Nobel Prize Winner, it has nothing to do with a carbonated beverage.

Either way, meteorologists’ opinions count just as much as ordinary individuals’ — and to target them in any way for having the “wrong” opinion shows little respect for the right of freedom of speech.

Don’t forget, Tina, these are the same people (10:10 Project, 350.org, etc) who put their sick fantasies into a cute little video of pushing a little red button and blowing those with the “wrong opinion” up into a pile of red goo. THAT is their opinion of “Freedom of Speech.”

Thankfully, their game is unraveling quickly, and will soon be clearly demonstrated to be the massive fraud it is. Sadly, all of science will suffer as a consequence. Unwittingly, these fools have triggered the beginning of the end of Big Science. Maybe that’s not all bad.

mr.blacksheep on January 30, 2012 at 4:28 PM

You’re on the internet, aren’t you? Do you really think that all the technology in your life would exist without the presence and progress of science?

Given the rise of China, it’s more like the end of below average Americans who fail to comprehend the value of science and would like to scuttle scientific research that results in politically unpleasant consequences.

Did anyone ever stop to consider that many meteorologists do not believe in “global warming” BECAUSE they have studied in detail the interactions of solar radiation, liquid water, water vapor, clouds, and the atmosphere and concluded from their extensive study that CO2 doesn’t matter much?

But you’re missing the point, 55 represents less than 1% of meteorologists in the USA. Only a small minority are outliers.

I’d support “””green””” technology if they dropped the use of the word “green” and the ridiculous premise that man is warming the globe. We do need to move away from polluting IMO, but that’s secondary to the advance we need in technology. In the future we’re going to need a LOT more energy than we’re capable of generating and our current system is archaic at best.

I support creating small black holes and using the magnetic fields they generate as a clean power source. To create the black hole we need to compress many liberal socialists at once as small as possible to cause them to collapse into a singularity. Viola! Problems solved!

I heard about this leftist anti-meteorologist campaign days ago form the Tom Nelson blog. I strongly recommend his blog as a kind of easy, at a glance anti-agw hub, a starting point for anti-warmist thinking. And he is the only one that is reading ALL of the CGate2 emails (and reporting on them as he reads).

But you’re missing the point, 55 represents less than 1% of meteorologists in the USA. Only a small minority are outliers.

bayam on January 30, 2012 at 7:03 PM

This part of the post:

So far, the campaign has identified 55 “deniers” in the meteorologist community and are looking for more. They define “deniers” as “anyone who expressly refutes the overwhelming scientific consensus about climate change:

indicates that there are more; and that they expect to find more – else why keep looking.

Plus, you haven’t acounted for the deniers in their hearts, who may not yet have made statements expressly refuting the overwhelming consensus.

Consensus is not proof; endlessly restating a weak argument is a tool of 2 year olds.

This is just what the Weather Channel’s little nazi, Heidi Cullen, wanted to do back in Dec 2006. She wanted the American Meteorological Society to revoke their “Seal of Approval” from any television weatherman who expresses skepticism that human activity is creating a climate catastrophe.

Here’s a better idea: Forecast the Facts could purchase ad time on local TV stations and run ads that feature this quote from a sympathetic meteorologist: “You wouldn’t ask your dentist about your gallbladder and you shouldn’t ask your local TV weatherman about climate change.”

Yes, better to ask a failed presidential candidate that flunked out of two different bible schools. He is obviously an expert!

These people just won’t give up their gravy train
skanter on January 30, 2012 at 4:40 PM

Will all that fit on a sandwich board?

These people just won’t give up their gravy train
of coarse not! if they did they would have to be standing on the sidewalk with a bell and wearing a sandwich board that says repent ye sinners the end is nigh! …

But you’re missing the point, 55 represents less than 1% of meteorologists in the USA. Only a small minority are outliers.
bayam on January 30, 2012 at 7:03 PM

Actually I think you have missed the point! The University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit is the premier Holy Grail of AGW!
The 55 represents the truth tellers with the cajones to stand up against the flood of stupidity

Gotta love it: the libtard Warmists aren’t getting their way so they resort to censorship & intimidation. These fascist thugs remind of the founder of EDF Environmental Defense Fund – the same genocidal maniac who said that it would be a great thing if billions of people were to die just to unclutter the earth a tad. I reckon he needed a little Liebensraum, eh?

I’m a strong proponent in truth in advertising. So allow me to fix these groups names so they are closer to reality:

The Forecast the Facts campaign — led by 350.org, the League of Conservation Voters and the Citizen Engagement Lab…

As the Global Warming/ Climate change tide continues to ebb from its high-water mark, the bleatings & fulminations of the Warmists in the Enviro Industry crowd will become more & more shrill. At the end, it will resemble little more than the Wicked Witch shrieking that she’s melting after having had a dose of cold water thrown on her.

this was on WUWT like a week ago, so if you want to keep up with stuff like this, check out that site. Only has a few updates a day on front page. If you wanna go nuts you can check out the other ‘skeptic’ websites.

However if I remember right, the number of deniers was at 47, so it’s increasing at the rate of sea level, UP 7 ALREADY!!111!!!! OH EM GEE!!@!1

You have the “scientific method” completely wrong – that’s not how it’s done any more.
The NEW approved liberal scientific method is:
1) Determine the political outcome you want.
2) Decide the “science” you will use to get it.
3) Define your conclusions to reach the desired outcome.
4) Fabricate data to support your conclusions.
5) Get the government to implement “fixes” based on your “research”.
5) Attack anyone who questions your conclusions, data or methods.
6) Get rich and retire to a beachfront mansion.

dentarthurdent on January 30, 2012 at 4:42 PM

Actually it’s the Political Science method, and you forgot the very first step. Invoke Godwin’s Law, early and often.

Unlike the deniers over at the smart end of the college, the retards in the Political Science department couldn’t get by without Holocaust references.

You have the “scientific method” completely wrong – that’s not how it’s done any more.
The NEW approved liberal scientific method is:
1) Determine the political outcome you want.
2) Decide the “science” you will use to get it.
3) Define your conclusions to reach the desired outcome.
4) Fabricate data to support your conclusions.5) Take over editorial board of scientific publications.
6) Don’t let any article questioning your theory past peer review.57) Get the government to implement “fixes” based on your “research”.58) Attack anyone who questions your conclusions, data or methods.69) Get rich and retire to a beachfront mansion on the balmy shores of Hudson Bay.

You’re on the internet, aren’t you? Do you really think that all the technology in your life would exist without the presence and progress of science?

bayam on January 30, 2012 at 6:59 PM

You don’t know the difference between science and Big Science. Surely, you know that Big Science rejects the classic scientific method in the post modern era of today.

Given the rise of China, it’s more like the end of below average Americans who fail to comprehend the value of science

Yes, bayam, people like you fail to comprehend the value of the scientific method. People like you think it’s ok to believe anything a group of pseudo-sceintists tells her regardless of how ridiculous it is and regardless of what the real science suggests.

bayam, it’s amazing that you fail to see your own hypocrisy. YOU are unable discuss the actual science involved with this.